World Editor Freezes - Strange Problem

[Xenoche]

Hello people of thehelper.net, I would like to ask to whether anyone else has had the same problem that I have been experiencing.

Ive been mapping for a few years now and have had this problem for a while, but it seems to fluctuate and reappear every few months or so, making the problem even more elusive. Below I will describe the problem and outline as many specifics that I can muster.

The Problem:

This problem only ever happens when I am terraining, the textures begin to flicker, the flickering I have learned is the wind before the storm, basically within a period of 5 to 15 minutes the flickering continues and I have a series of system stalls ( System stalls; the computer completely freezes, the mouse doesn't work, winamp seems to repeat the same note that the system stalled on, basically everything stops ). After 3-5 of these system stalls the computer does one completely restarts, almost instantly, and upon restart displays a Microsoft Windows box stating the following:

The system has recovered from a serious error.

The data report that comes with this contains the following error signature:

BCCode : 100000ea BCP1 : 8225BDA8 BCP2 : 822A9940 BCP3 : F8A94CB4
BCP4 : 00000001 OSVer : 5_1_2600 SP : 2_0 Product : 768_1

The error report technical information:

C:\DOCUME~1\Xenoche\LOCALS~1\Temp\WERb764.dir00\Mini123107-01.dmp
C:\DOCUME~1\Xenoche\LOCALS~1\Temp\WERb764.dir00\sysdata.xml

Things Ive done so far:

After sending the error report to Microsoft it says to do the following actions to solve the problem:

1 - Install the most current device driver for my video card.
2 - Manually decrease Hardware Acceleration for your video adapter.

-Option one is completely pointless, as after installing numerous video drivers (properly, I'm not completely incompetent when it comes to computers), each driver fails to absolve the problem.
-Option two is equally pointless, reducing hardware acceleration disables features that Warcraft requires to operate.
-I regularly scan my computer for viruses, cookies and whatever I can find that I know shouldn't be there.
-Ive used registry checker to clean unused registry items.
-I have so far formatted and re-installed windows 2 times, and after each re-installation, the problem persists.

Additional Information:

System Information:

Time of this report: 12/31/2007, 19:26:32
Machine name: BEAST
Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.070227-2254)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: NVIDIA
System Model: AWRDACPI
BIOS: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+, MMX, 3DNow, ~2.0GHz
Memory: 512MB RAM
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DxDiag Version: 5.03.2600.2180 32bit Unicode

Please note that the above problem ONLY ever occurs when viewing terrain in the WarCraft world editor. I am still able to play WarCraft, Call of Duty, Half Life and FarCry with no problems what so ever.

If anyone could shed some light on this most annoying of problems I would be much appreciated.

Xeno.

 

[OneEight7eve]

Do you use any custom ( imported ) terrain.

 

[kingbdogz]

Try reinstalling something similar happend to me i just reinstalled and it worked.

 

[Sevion]

Try reinstalling something similar happend to me i just reinstalled and it worked.

If you read his post, he's already tried that... Multiple times.

Also, what's with your comp? Everything about it pwns except the Home Edition and 512mb of Ram. (I recommend 1-2gb and Pro<== Works better than Vista for performance and do we really need all that eye candy that in the end just slows you down?)

 

[Xenoche]

OneEight7eve: I am not using any custom terrain, and it seems to happen, regardless of what map I open, so that eliminates anything map specific I would think.

kingbdogz: I have tried re-installing (after numerous system formats).

Sevion: Yes my computer is more then capable of playing high performance graphics whores like half life 2, yet stumbles when I view terrain in war craft , can anyone say wtf?
I agree fully that Vista, with all its bells and whistles, is completely unnecessary when XP does everything just as well (for what I want to do anyway).
LOL, I have told my gf constantly that I need more RAM, and she gives me a look like this , i will eventually.

I just tried De-fragging (kinda pointless when I've formatted) but I'm getting a bit :nuts:. Especially when I've got mates online waiting for my next update.

 

[FhelZone]

Oh, so you mean that flickery thing that happens once in a while, where you cant see anything but weird graphics. I think its the compatibality of the game to your graphics card. Sometimes all you need is to restart your computer.

 

[NationCreati]

Hmmm. Sorry if I sound like an ass, but better to ask than not to ;-)
Have you patched wc3 up to current version?
Have you defragmented your computer lately?
Have you closed any unneccesary background tasks?
Have you checked for any viruses?
Has this always happened?

I doubt it's wc3's fault. Most probable thing is a background task is messing it up, but if all else fails than you might want re-install windows.

 

[Xenoche]

FhelZone:
If a restart was all I needed to do, I sure as hell wouldn't be on here annoying you guys , its not a complete distortion of textures, just a very subtle flicker, I tried to screen shot it, but the flickers are quite random and to subtle to capture. What I find strange, FhelZone, is that in-game the textures are rendered perfectly, without flicker,so I don't think its an issue of compatibility.

NationCreati:
My warcraft is updated to the latest patch (via battle-net).
I tried de-fragging about an hour ago, with no success.
I only ever have running what I'm using at the time, plus winamp if I'm mapping which has never posed a problem before. One thing I just noticed is that under processes in the windows task manager I have 5 instances of "svchost.exe", can anyone provide verification whether this is normal, that the same instances appear on their computer.
I'm very meticulous when it comes to my computers security, and do scans every few days or so, so I would'nt think virises would be an issue as my comp seems pretty clean.

I have re-installed windows numerous times now, and sent numerous error reports to windows (I dont expect them to respond).

Thanks for your ideas thus far,
but sadly still no cigar.

Xeno.

Progress Update

After extensive googling and analyzing of my processes I have found nothing otherwise out of the ordinary adding to my frustrations. Should I ever find the root of my current problem, be assured that I will outline the solution, as of yet no solution has been found thus far.

 

[Sevion]

I have 5 svchost.exe's running too. Works fine. Nothing is happening. (Except that I'm modding WE . Adding in Trackables and getting rid of BJ's in GUI.)

 

[Xenoche]

Yeah, I found a really nifty program from the Microsoft downloads page called "ProceXP" which allows you to break down processes to there roots and expose what there operating, very handy tool indeed. After analysing each of the "svchost.exe" with this tool I found that they were completly legit and operating some core systems, so I would suggest to anyone NOT to termanate "svchost.exe" without checking them first with "ProceXP".

 

[Waaaaagh]

Every now and then my computer just completely dies; svchost.exe is always the culprit, 'malfunctioning'. Then, I get 60 seconds before my computer shuts down to save all my stuff, but usually WE is frozen. Thus, I save. A lot.

But this is not about me. My question:

Do you have warcraft installed on your C drive? Many programs for me malfunction if they are on anything but C.

 

[Sevion]

This is a strange problem indeed. Do you have any other computers with WC? If so, try and see what happens on those ones. Waaaaagh, not everyone has their OS installed on C drive. Like me for instance, I have it on F drive

 

[Xenoche]

I wish I had another computer to use , but sadly no.

Yeah, it is installed on C drive, basically I create 2 partitions, C drive is used for anything system related, while my D drive is used for software, documents ect..

Yeah, I save alot too, but I has got to a point where I've kinda lost my patience with the world editor, hence why I'm on here posting my problem. What I was hoping for was to find someone that might have had the same problem so we could cross reference our systems, and find the solution that way.

After alot of research into the "svchost.exe" I have found people that have had major issues with it, but still, before you start ending processes "willy, nilly" I would firmly suggest you check them, the last thing you want is to end up with a worse problem from when you started.

 

[NationCreati]

Does this happen without winamp? I remember I had a song-list that couldn't find the song locations, so it would skip the song. It started looping over and over, and that caused a major performance hit for me.

 

[Xenoche]

Yea, the problem defiantly happens regardless if Winamp is running or not ( that was one of the first thing I tried, hoping it was gonna be that simple ), but alas.

I just cant understand why when rendering the terrain in-game its fine, but in the terrain editor it crashes , to me it would seem the same processes are involved so there shouldn't be an issue, yet there is.

 

[Xenoche]

-----Update-----

Well its been nearly a month now and the problem still persists, much to my absolute disgust and annoyance beyond comprehension. All would like to know is whether anyone else has experienced the same problem, or at least a similar problem with the world editor.

If there really is no solution, I will resort to replacing my computer.

 

[Syndrome]

Wihch world editor are you using? WEU is a buggy mess, NewGen is more stable and secure, but a mod is a mod, though I have no problems with NewGen yet.

My old WE did this to me, but that was only when I was importing models into my map.

When I installed NewGen, problem solved.

So, heres a last resort: NewGen editor.

 

[Xenoche]

I defiantly don't use WEU, heard to many bad things about it.

This NewGen editor, is it a new editor in its own right, or just a mod, and whats the official site address for it?

EDIT

I thought I heard of it before, so thanks for the idea.
I downloaded it and tried it out but sadly doesn't relieve the freezes.

 

[FKNCrazy]

Hey thats my computers name... kinda, its its nick name at least. Did you try delete those 2 files? nothing in temp folder is really useful anyways.
Do you have an ati video card? This may seem off topic but its not, Ati video cards and Directx 10 don't work together well in some games, i had a recent issue like that for hellgate, (but that was because hellgate just hates ATi) But many people had a problem with ati and directx 10.

If you've tried all that i suggest you delete system32, the last resort is always the best.

 

[Xenoche]

I have an Nvidia GPU.

Wouldn't deleting the System32 folder cause windows to crash? Isn't System32 homage to some core processes of the windows OS?

I'll have a search around and report my findings.